Submitted by rich_c on February 10, 2009 - 5:52am
There are a couple of things I’d like to comment on related to previous entries I’ve made about the features of Windows 7 and how new Linux users are treated. The most puzzling is Microsoft’s decision to cripple Windows 7 Starter edition with a limit of running three applications at a time. Throw in an average number of things running in the background and you’ll be able to run nothing! Not too useful!
The other thing is the issue of some people stating that the Linux community should unite behind one distro to make it easier for new users to get started. I disagree with this as although the amount of choice may seem daunting it is still a strength, not a weakness! Viva la difference, as the French would say. There are distros that are popular, easy to set up, very stable, cutting edge, customisable and so on. Each has it’s community of users who have their specific requirements. One size fits all wouldn’t work! Even Windows has different ‘editions’ although as mentioned, I can’t imagine much demand for an OS that isn’t capable of anything, as above! Although new users will have to ask for advise regarding which distro to use initially, they will no doubt be glad of the choices available once they gain experience and start looking for something that best suits their needs.
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Viva la difference
by j.a.watson - Feb 10 2009 - 8:33am
I agree about keeping the diversity of the distributions, but I have had some comments on my blog at ZDNet UK from people saying they were "scared away" from Linux by what they considered a confusing array of choices. My take on it is, the majority of the people who are capable of installing, configuring and maintaining an operating system themselves, rather than buying a computer pre-loaded, are not likely to be dissuaded by having choices of Linux. For those who wish only to buy their computers pre-loaded, the key is going to be getting a reasonable number of OEMs to offer Linux, and to stick with those offerings. In this respect, diversity of offerings is an advantage, because as most of us have seen, different systems work better with different distributions.
jw